Only In Jest
by Start A Fire
Summary: "Why are you staring at me like that?"  House/Cameron drabbles. Fluff is fun.  "I was supposed to cut the blue wire."
1. TOP 10

**Hola! It's been a while since I've been on FF; new account and all that jazz. My fic interests have changed drastically since the old account, and since it was a joint account, I figured I might as well just start one of my own. Now, this is going to be a collection of House/Cameron drabbles from prompt lists, so please refrain from throwing things at me if you aren't a fan of the pairing; most of them aren't really in the romantic sense, anyway, so much as... I'm not quite sure. Flirty teasing, perhaps. (Also, this is my first attempt at a Houseverse fic, so if you spot anything that seems too far off-base canonwise, feel free to comment on it, and I'll see if I can correct it next time around. /insecure) **

**Anyway, without further ado, here's Only In Jest. :D**

**TOP 10**

She let him look through her iPod playlist while she drove him to Wilson's one soggy evening (something about his own car having a flat; she wasn't quite buying it). She should have known she was asking for trouble, but by the time she realized this, it was far too late.

"Adam _Lambert?_" House asked, pulling a face at her as they came to a stoplight. She resisted the urge to roll her eyes.

"There is nothing wrong with Adam Lambert, House."

"Cameron, the boy never should have made it beyond the top ten. He sounds like a dying Siamese. ... In heat."

She scoffed, her eyes narrowing a little as the gentleman in the car ahead of them, chatting away on his cell phone, failed to notice the light turn green. "That's a little harsh, don't you think?" she asked, flicking a glance at him as she tapped the horn in a halfhearted attempt to actually get somewhere before the light turned again. House's eyebrows arched at this.

"Honking the horn? Terribly. _Oh,_" he continued, barely pausing as he feigned an epiphany. "You mean your terrible taste in music." She pouted a little; he ignored it. "Really, though. I could recommend so much better."

"What's not to like?" she argued, stubborn (all the while cursing the man still obliviously on his phone). House stared at her for a moment, then retrieved his cane and held it up to his face, imitating a microphone.

_"Whataya want from me?" _he shrilled, screwing up his face with the effort of his impression before looking her dead in the eye. Cameron could only gape at him, oblivious to the cars honking behind her - the guy on the cell phone had long since moved.

She never _could_ listen to Adam Lambert songs after that.

**Holy cow this looks longer on paper. ;_; Well. I guess that's the point of a drabble, eh? Reviews are appreciated - few more to come. **


	2. DARK HORSE

**No intro for this one other than the fact that Luke's Angel is based on a racehorse I knew who was, in fact, very much the cow she's made out to be in this drabble. :P Enjoy.**

**DARK HORSE**

She was impossible to take to the racetrack. Every horse with the longest odds, every underdog, every dark horse - that was her top pick, and since life wasn't one big remake of _Seabiscuit_, unsurprisingly, she kept kissing her assets goodbye.

He tried to help her.

"Look, quit playing Miss Bleeding Heart America for five seconds and look at this lineup. Number three's got the best odds. Bet on him."

She peered over his shoulder at the listing, reading the third horse's name aloud. "'Yagottalottanerve'?" Her brow furrowed as she ignored House's instructions and scanned the other horses listed. "I wanna go with number nine, actually." House looked for the ninth-place horse. Luke's Angel. Wasn't that the ugly little white one that threw her jockey during the warmup? He looked again. Longest shot in the entire bunch. Terrific.

"Fine. If this one loses, you buy dinner."

Luke's Angel never made it to the wire - or, at least, her jockey didn't. Cameron let out a little squeal and covered her eyes as the mare launched herself out of the starting gate like a bucking bronc, flinging her jockey over her head with a massive, back-arching buck before barrelling after the other horses. House's eyes stayed glued on the trio fighting for the lead. Dinner was in the bag, but he still had to prove a point-

"Yes!"

Yagottalottanerve had won by a nose.

**Reviews are fab, plxnthx. ;D Next up: The Blue Wire.**


	3. THE BLUE WIRE

**This one's a bit punny. I apologize in advance.**

**THE BLUE WIRE**

House normally took no interest in computer games - especially not at work, where he had other, more reactive things to entertain himself with. Members of his team, for example. Or Cuddy, or Wilson. ... Or Cuddy's boobs. (Cuddy's boobs, while not reactive in and of themselves, did earn him a reaction from Bosslady, thus earning them a place under this category.) And if not something reactive, then at least something that didn't involve being glued to a screen; his tennis ball, naps, his TV - well, okay, maybe the last one didn't count.

However, lately he'd become immersed in this simple, yet maddeningly difficult Flash game - Bomb Disposal Master IV, level six. If he recalled correctly, Wilson had introduced the game to him one night (more than likely to distract him, as the oncologist had been surrounded by a frighteningly vast volume of paperwork) along with the challenge "Bet you can't beat just one." While it wasn't a masterfully-built game by any means, a number of the bomb pieces were left up to chance, like a large-scale version of Minesweeper.

And level six kept eluding him - until today. He was sure he'd finally figured it out; he'd narrowed it down to two specific wires. Now, which to cut - the red or the blue?

He decided to go for the blue. He started to drag the mouse in that direction-

- the door burst open and Cameron strode in -

- and, startled, he clicked too soon.

The Game Over song was a loud rendition of Rick Astley's one-hit wonder, Never Gonna Give You Up, and it flooded House's office now for what felt like the hundredth time, briefly drowning out the first part of Cameron's apparent tirade. The immunologist looked a bit flustered, but she pressed on relentlessly as the music slowly dwindled of its own accord.

"- Patient's still got a fever of 103.3 and her baby's heart rate is still too high but her mother's trying to convince her to just go home, she'll never - why are you looking at me like that?"

House stared mournfully from the brunette to his computer and back again.

"I was supposed to cut the blue wire."

**Read and review, s'il vous plaît! Next: From Scratch!**


	4. FROM SCRATCH

**If there's one drabble in particular that I think has the potential to wander off the canon mark so far, it's this one. :| Feel free to pass judgement. It's the last of the four I have written so far; there'll be more coming when I get a chance to write 'em. Enjoy.**

**FROM SCRATCH **

Contrary to what everyone seemed to think of her - that she was Little Miss Perfect, that she could do no wrong - there was one thing, for sure, that Alison Cameron absolutely couldn't do.

She couldn't bake.

Perhaps that was taking it too far; she could bake... provided it was something already prepared and in a box for her. Instant brownies? Suuuure. Pillsbury cookies-in-a-tube? Bring it on. Make a cake from scratch? Not a chance.

She blamed the fact that she was too busy with work to learn how to properly bake. House pointed out that her hours weren't _that_ unreasonable (to which she had no reply) and invited himself over for dinner. That night, as she busied herself in the kitchen (House left her to it, assuring her that there was no rush... unless they got a new patient, in which case they were screwed), he excused himself to the washroom. This was, of course, code for "going snooping." She _was_ a perfectionist, so it wouldn't have been unlike her to...

"Aha." She _did_ keep all of her old report cards...

"You failed Home Ec.," he informed her casually, settling down at the table. Cameron's back stiffened slightly, but she didn't turn from where she was working at the counter.

"You looked through my things. Why am I not surprised?"  
"You have _great_ taste in magazines, by the way. Cosmo..." He trailed off with a wolf whistle. Cameron scowled over her shoulder at him before setting a plate of cookies on the table.

"If I feed you, will you shut up?"

House eyed the cookies for a long moment before selecting one and taking a bite. Cameron watched him quietly. "Now... since you seem to know all about my ability based on my marks from the eighth grade... homemade or storebought?"

House chewed. Eggshell fragments grinded unpleasantly between his teeth; he wondered if she could hear it.

Oh, he was never going to forgive himself for this.

"Storebought."

**Reviews make me happy.**


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